1 - Beginner Custom reticle

[moonsense715]

Author: Psychosis, Dayton Holt

Skill level: 1

 

 

This tutorial will show you how to create your own reticle for W3D using Photoshop and its nVidia dds plugin (the plugin lets you save textures/images in dds format).

 

 

 

1. The first thing you do is to create a 64 x 64 pixel image. Now, draw your new reticle in black and white in the shape of a reticle, crosshairs, a dot, whatever, so it looks something like this:

 

 

2. Now, go to "Select" -> "All" (or press "CTRL + A")

 

Go to "Edit" -> "Copy" (or press "Ctrl + C")

Click on the "Channels" tab and at the bottom "Save selection as channel".

The Alpha channel will appear, click on it go to "Edit" -> "Paste" (or press "CTRL + V") to paste your reticle into the alpha channel. (The alpha channel must be grayscale in alpha channel in order for W3D to get the transparency right, don't colorize it!)

 

 

3. You`re pretty much set. Now save your file as a DDS in the data directory of your Renegade/Reborn/Whatever game folder, make sure you save it as hd_reticle.dds, and make sure you save it as DXT5 with mipmaps.

 

If the reticle you are making requires a custom center dot as well, create a new image file and do all the steps above the same except:

Draw the center dot instead of the outer Reticle and the name should be hd_reticle_hit.dds.

 

 

4. That`s it basically. For a screenshot of the results: